Poor Ryan Preece.
At this point, the man could probably walk into a padded room carrying nothing more dangerous than a foam pool noodle and somehow still end up involved in a crash spectacular enough to require three safety trucks, two fire extinguishers, and a replay angle usually reserved for asteroid impacts.
Sunday afternoon at the NASCAR All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway was simply the latest chapter in what has become one of the more unfortunate recurring themes in the NASCAR Cup Series: if there’s a horrifying wreck, chances are Ryan Preece is somewhere in the middle of it wondering what exactly just happened.
And this one arrived almost immediately.
The green flag had barely finished waving before the field behind the leaders turned into an accordion made of carbon fiber and bad decisions. On Lap 2, Preece found himself in a three-wide fight entering Turn 1 alongside Todd Gilliland and Kyle Larson. There was contact between Preece and Gilliland, everybody suddenly ran out of room, and then physics took over in the violent, expensive sort of way.
The result was a multi-car pileup that collected Larson, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Daniel Suarez, Cole Custer, John Hunter Nemechek and Michael McDowell in a scene that looked less like an exhibition race and more like somebody had kicked over a box of die-cast cars.
But while several drivers suffered damage, Preece once again seemed to absorb the sort of hit normally reserved for action movies starring people named “Tank.”
His No. 60 Ford snapped backward into the Turn 1 wall at alarming speed. Then came the fire.
Because apparently the racing gods looked at the situation and thought, “You know what this needs? More drama.”
With a full fuel load onboard, flames erupted from the rear of the car as it slid to a stop. For a brief moment the thing looked less like a Mustang Dark Horse and more like a barbecue grill somebody had accidentally launched into the banking at Dover.
To Preece’s credit, he climbed out quickly and walked away under his own power, which has sadly become a sentence NASCAR fans have had to type far too often regarding Ryan Preece accidents.
After being checked and released from the infield care center, Preece sounded exactly like a driver who was still trying to piece together the chaos.
“I’m fine, but I seem to take big hits,” Preece said. “But no, I don’t know what happened. Obviously, I got to see a replay, but if it was anything, it was probably close on my part. Going into Turn 1, and just got sideways. If it was my fault, I’m sorry. Tough way to not finish a race on Lap 1.”
Actually, Ryan, it was Lap 2.
Though given the violence of the impact, we’ll allow the math error.
The crash brought out a red flag and effectively ended the day for several teams, including Preece, while others like Larson and Blaney scrambled to repair their damaged cars in hopes of returning later in the event.
Meanwhile, Preece was left once again wearing the invisible crown as NASCAR’s undisputed king of catastrophic impacts.
Still, there was one positive.
At least he didn’t get a black eye.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.